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Changing Your Mind, Beliefs and Attitudes

Coach Jana L Beutler, M.Ed.

Each day our lives are filled with
change. Some are dramatic: diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, the
sudden loss of an important relationship, a sprained ankle that forces
adjustment to a well-designed fitness walking program. Others are more subtle:
shorter days, a nagging pain, awareness that you recover from an injury more
slowly than you used to, or noticing that your clothes are tighter than you'd
like them to be. Last, but not least, are the changes we choose: moving to a
different home, changing jobs, or starting a new relationship.

These events are "stressors."
They precipitate conscious or unconscious thoughts, emotions or feelings, and
a subsequent behavior in reaction to that stressor. Your response, which is
based on an inner belief you may be unaware of, can be healthy--taking a
walk, meditating, lounging in a hot tub--or unhealthy--overeating, obsessing,
or isolating. The process of becoming aware of these usually progressive
steps--Stress, Inner Belief, Thought-Emotion and/or Feeling, Behavior--and
changing your mind about one more of them is the basis of the work known as
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Consider Jennifer whose pants began
to pucker across her thighs. She thought, "this isn't good," and
felt disgusted with herself for not exercising as often as she did before her
children were born. Instead of finding a way to reverse her dilemma she
turned to eating to feel better. Jennifer was a candidate for REBT.

Dr. Albert Ellis founded REBT in the
mid-fifties. Since then, his belief--that people's psychological difficulties
stem from their own erroneous assumptions and faulty concepts of themselves
and the world--has become mainstream.

REBT is practical and action-oriented.
It stimulates emotional growth by teaching people to replace currently-held
attitudes, painful thoughts and feelings, and self-defeating behaviors with
new and more effective ones. Statements like, "It won't hurt my fitness
program if I skip my walk," or, "Eating fast food for lunch won't
affect my health," may be true for a single day. However, repeating
these thoughts for days, weeks, or months is erroneous thinking. They can
lead to a belief pattern that supports a lack of exercise and overeating
self-defeating behavior.

Ellis describes REBT as short-term
therapy for long-term results. The current most visible practitioner of this
type of self-management therapy is Dr. Phil who calls his work cognitive
therapy.

Last year, I combined a vacation that
included a historical walking tour through New York City with a visit to the
Albert Ellis Institute where the now ninety-year-old still actively
participates in training professionals who want to use his work. Ellis says,
"There is virtually nothing in which I delight more than throwing myself
into a good and difficult problem." During his weekly "open to the
public" demonstration of his methods, he used a series of intuitive
questions to uncover the expectations and personal rules that were leading to
emotional distress in a volunteer from his audience. In this case, it was
unresolved anger over losing a job the volunteer held for many years. Ellis
used a technique he calls "disputing" to help this individual
reformulate her limiting beliefs into more sensible, realistic, and helpful
ones. Ellis didn't dispute the anger itself-it was righteous under the
circumstances. What he led his volunteer to dispute through his questioning was
her underlying belief that she couldn't be happy unless the person who fired
her suffered as much as she had. Soon the woman acknowledged on her own that
her anger was self-defeating. I could perceive the relaxation she experienced
as the stress-induced thought and feeling was tempered, setting the stage for
her to move on with her life instead of dwelling on the incident. At the end
of the hour exercise she reported, "it brings new meaning to the phrase,
"when a door closes, a window opens."

When Dr. Phil asks, "How's that
workin' for you?" he sets the stage, as Ellis did, for overcoming a
self-defeating behavior. You can do this yourself by attempting to understand
(writing helps) your own Stress-Belief-Thought-Emotion/Feeling-Behavior
process. This includes listing the payoffs you get and prices you pay for
engaging in the behavior. After that, it's also important to list the
opportunities you miss because you chose the familiar, often unconscious,
behavior pattern. Once you understand yourself, you set the stage for paying
more attention to your options for healthy choices to manage the inevitable
stresses of life. Then you can take that road less traveled and, within
minutes, experience a soaring self-esteem.

I enjoyed seeing Ellis in action. I was
surprised, however, when he ended his presentation with a saying I first
heard my mother repeat when I was young. "Grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference." Easier said than done? Of
course. But changing your mind is a choice. It's yours and it IS possible.